Lobo's Lessons

Lately I've been finding it hard to focus. I think it's been going on for a while now. So I guess I shouldn't say lately. Up until early 2021 I felt that I was in control of things.  I could work, whether from home or from the office, depending what the situation was like and what the directives were from the university. I'd attend meeting, give lectures, run my various committees under my portfolio as Assistant Dean for External and Global Engagement.  Then I'd go home, spend a little time with the family, have dinner, pray, and then continue working - either continue with work from the university, or working on my own work - content creation, writing my various book projects, make videos.  There was always something that I would do, and I would do them because I wanted to do them, and I had the energy and the willpower to do them. But of late, that seems to have all dissipated. I'd go home after work, and just look at the computer after dinner.  My head is swi...

Growing up in the UK in the late 70s and 80s, it was almost impossible to get fast food that was halal. Definitely not like what it is today. Back in the day, we lived in many different places when I was growing up, but I consider Bath to be my where I struck my roots. As a kid you don’t really remember many things that were not within your immediate scope of experience. Everything was taken care of by your parents, and that is something I have go to remember again with my own children. Sometimes I expect them to be aware more of what is going on around them, but when I remember my own childhood, all we knew was we did what our parents told us, moved where they moved, went where they went etc. Anyway, I’m rambling. Back to what I was saying, It was literally impossible to get fast food, and all we could do was just imagine how the burgers would taste. Fries or chips was not too much of an issue because we were able to eat Fish and Chips, especially from Evans in the middle ...

I am in a hotel room. It is unclear who else is in the room. It must be my family. But I am uncertain. I know I am in the room with people I love. The hotel room is in a building that towers above ground level, and we can see all the houses below. I am in Hawaii I think. How I know that I do not know. All I know is that we are beside the ocean. I feel unsettled as I look out the window. Something is compelling me to look outside the window. It is getting dark. But I know by right it should not be dark. It is midday. And then I see it. In front of me a huge storm cloud is gathering. But I start to quiver because it looks like no ordinary storm. The clouds are pitch black. Black as death. My eyes follow their shape to where they originate. I gasp. I see a gigantic water spout, a tornado in the ocean, funnelling its energy to the black cloud. The water spout is also pitch black. Rain now pours uncontrollably. It is a hurricane at its full blast, but not just that. It is mu...

Help is never far away. That is the old adage that has been drummed into us ever since we were young. No matter where you are, and what difficulty you are going through, someone will be close at hand to help. Except they aren't. Many a time no one in your vicinity gives a rat's ass. Or could be in a mess of their own to even think that someone else may need the support. Just that little bit of assurance to show that they care. Sometimes it can be in the smallest things. A kind word. A check up of how one is doing. Yet help does come. Someone takes the time to respond, in short messages, all the way from across the Pacific Ocean. Someone does take the time to relate, and share their own experiences, and offers words of comfort from across the country. Yes, help is at hand, but it is always far away. *picture credit here

How does one forgive someone who has done them and their loved ones so much wrong? This is a question that I struggle with, and have always struggled with for a long time.  How does one push past the pain and suffering that a person had willingly caused, worse yet, caused to someone that they loved. We stand at the sidelines, and feel ourselves slighted, yet the pain we feel is minuscule, compared to the earth-shattering hurt our loved one experiences. Yet we are powerless, drowning in a helplessness, grasping for any lifeline that can pull ourselves out from the deep.  How can we let go when hatred is all we know. A hatred that festered from seeds of dislike. This poison that we feed ourselves. Yet it is all we know.  How does one tell oneself to let go? If a person murders your son, and returns a month later, saying he is genuinely sorry; what would you do? He comes in and says he will pay for the cleaning bill, to wipe the blood stains off the...

Image taken from here As I am gardening, my mind begins to wonder. A pleasurable activity, now that I have some time on my hands. as my hands sift through the earth I come across a small shiny object. What is this? I wonder.  I pick it up, and it appears to be a key. I rub the dirt off the key and I see the letters B...L...O...GGER. I am amazed. So that's where it's been all this while. These couple of years.  Perhaps it's time for me to start writing again.

I remember when the highlight of my day was to see my blog roll shift, signalling that there was a new post in any of the blogs that I followed. I would usually attack the link with a voracious appetite. Here was something that I knew would stimulate my thoughts, tickle my funny bone, provoke passionate responses. But most of all, it was connecting with friends on a deep level. The kind of connection one could achieve by a chat over a good coffee, all in the comfort of one’s own home. I would always wonder what Ailin would be doing in Sweden, and how she was faring in her battle with pain; where Fauziah Ismail was and what adventures (and gripes) she would share; or what entertaining fad Ah Beng would share from his treasure trove of a brain; what epiphany of language and culture Jordan Macvay would experience. And oh so many, many more. But progress is a cruel master, and like all roads lead to Rome, progress on the Internet all led to Facebook. At first I was ecstatic to connect...

Image credit here . I used to always think it was strange that Dad was never able to sit through a whole movie with us when we were growing up. He would perhaps start watching one with us, and leave after about 30 minutes, to do whatever it was that he would rather be doing. That is, until I found myself challenged trying to finish a whole movie myself, without feeling the urge to hit the fast-forward button, at times, or even getting up and going to my study to do something else that was more productive. I can't remember exactly when I started behaving this way, but I think it could have started sometime during my PhD. Unless it was a movie that I really wanted to watch (and not my children), then I found that it was almost impossible to sit through the whole thing. Things that I normally found more engaging/pressing/interesting than watching through a whole movie: The Internet. Yes. That's right. Even though it was little more than scrolling through my Facebook ...

Photo credit here The 22nd of August was day of mourning for the whole nation. Malaysians from every walk of life gave a minute of silence for the dead as their earthly remains were transported from the coldness of foreign shores to the warmth of the embrace of their Ibu Pertiwi, their Earth Mother.  And yet, hardly a day had gone by when a headline rudely splashed across my Facebook newsfeed:  “PKR leader calls National Mourning Day an excessive affair”, which immediately raised my ire out of the sheer audacity and disrespect toward the dead, and toward a nation in mourning. How dare this upstart politician use this tragedy as a grounds to bash the government? Has he no decency? Has he no respect? I straight away clicked on the link to find out more about this person.  And I was surprised. This was no ordinary politician. He was a retired Admiral of the Malaysian Armed Forces, someone who had dedicated his life to the preservation of our nation’s well...

Being a stay at home dad for the first time in my life is not an easy thing. Salmah has reported for duty, and she was put to work straight away from day one. No down time at all. No time to do anything. To rest. To get the house settled. To enrol the kids to daycare, kindergarten and school. To get the Internet setup. Nada. But we have managed so far, fitting in whatever we can into our schedules, and me with my broken toes driving to and fro from Kulai to JB (45 mins each way) to get affairs settled. And of course, me being the say at home dad. Like I said it is not easy. There are so many things that I took for granted, things that are second nature to my wife, but a huge challenge for me. Things like getting the kids ready in the morning, making sure that they have eaten, bathed, worn their clothes, nappies, etc. And heavens me how hard is it to mobilise three boys when you need to go out for something? And how many hands does a stay at home Daddy need to manage everythi...

I have been putting off writing this post for a long time now. I told myself the timing was never right. Or that it was too soon. Or that I had too much going on. Which I did of course. But today marked a significant milestone in my life here in NZ. We had sent the boxes containing our personal effects that we had collected over the past three and a half years for shipping. A hard month and a half of packing, and a mad sprint to the finish yesterday, where Salmah only slept 45 minutes in 24 hours, and then had to rush off for her final day at her job at 4am in the morning, bless her soul. But we made the deadline. And now in as the adrenaline is ebbing out of my veins, I finally get a chance to contemplate on the past three and half years as a Kiwi, and how life was going back full circle, as I prepared to leave these shores. It is impossible to capture every single experience in a single blogpost, but there are those moments that are impossible to delete from one...

Two days ago, I broke my little toe, and fractured the toes beside it in 2 different places, after slamming it into a doorframe, while I was half asleep and rushing to see what my baby son was crying about. Turns out his mother was in the room with him, but was preparing my other 2 sons to go to school. So the baby was just being a baby. And I had broken my toes for nothing. It wasn't much fun, and it hurt like having a steamroller have its way with my foot. Fast forward the first 2 days of absolute misery, waiting on a wheelchair at 2 different clinics and lastly the hospital. Fast forward the day after in my PJs, feeling painful, and miserable, full of self-pity and loss of self-worth. It is now Day 3. The deadline is closing in and I have so much that I haven't done. We are leaving NZ for good in just over 3 weeks' time. So much to do. Packing. Shipping. Writing PhD. Most pressing is the fact that I have to sell my beloved Honda Odyssey in a few days'...